A Connection Beyond Fate
by QueXseraXsera
Summary: AU. Nakoma approaches Kocoum and through one night's conversation they discover the magnetic pull between them, that exists despite Kocoums commitment to Pocahontas. Totally K rated.
1. And so it Begins

**Author's Note:** Okay so I seem to develop fanfiction for random pairings. This idea just came to me a super long time ago and has been banging around in my brain ever since. I just HAD to write it down:D WARNING: Kocoum is SUPER OOC (out of character) because I don't think he would do this and still act like himself. To any fans of this particular pairing is it Nakocoum or Kocoma? I prefer the later, but that's just me. Anyways I'm not too satisfied with the ending so I may rewrite it if I have time. Meant to be a one shot, but if y'all like it and want another chapter I'm more than happy to come up with one. Otherwise it is a totally stand alone piece. Enjoy the story!

**EDIT:** Eureka! I have blessed this chapter with question marks. :D That is a simple and suprisingly common mistake for me. But most of the time those mistakes don't make it into the fanfiction. Most of the time. Oh and if you see a spelling/ grammar mistake within these chapters don't be afraid to call me on it! I love editing my chapters. :)

"Failure and success seem to have been allotted to men by their stars. But they retain the power of wriggling, of fighting with their star or against it, and in the whole universe the only really interesting movement is this wriggle." ~E.M. Forester

...

She wasn't here and I was compelled to make excuses for her disappearance.

"Oh no," I would say. "Pocahontas just went out for a bit. She'll be back within the safety of our space all too soon. You know how she is." Then people shook their heads with a small smile. Pocohontas is wild, but also the chief's daughter; a fact that would exonerate her from almost anything. And I—sturdy, dependable Nakoma—sit there and clean up her mess. Not that I have anything against her. Pocahontas is my best friend, really. But sometimes I wish I could trust her enough to turn around and have her stay by my side, instead of gallivanting off to who knows where.

The biggest lie that I regret to tell, however, is to Kocoum. Like so many bugs drawn to the bright, capricious light of the fire, men are drawn to Pocahontas's beauty and easy laugh. They make one dangerous mistake, though. They believe they can tame her. So this is probably why when I see Kocoum sitting around a fire, sharpening his knife with his brow furrowed from troubled thoughts rather than effort I sit down next to him. And I don't speak of Pocahontas. Only pity could stop my tongue tangling in more excuses and actually caring about Pocahontas's fiancé, which is more than she can say. I do not wish to speak ill of my friend, but this is true. She treats Kocoum poorly. If anyone, she should tell him outright that she isn't willing to settle for his sturdy walls. When I sat next to Kocoum, he seemed not to even register my presence. So I sat there in silence with him for a moment. This was just as well. It's not as if I knew anything truthful to say to him anyway.

"Are you alright?" Kocoum asked. His question surprised me, not just because it was an interruption of the silence but that it was about my welfare rather than Pocahontas's.

"I'm fine," I said automatically. "Why do you ask?"

"You seem troubled," he said tersely before lapsing back into silence. He tried to look busy with his knife, but I could see that he was just staring into the fire.

"It's only the cares of an overactive mind, really. I was just wondering how the negotiations for war are going."  
"Poorly. I hate to trouble you further, but it's true. They are afraid to fight a people they have no knowledge of."  
"It is so strange that everything changed so fast. Just a month ago we were at peace. And now…"  
"Sometimes I wish they would leave us alone."

"Pocahontas would say that we could all just co-exist if we tried hard enough," I said softly then mentally smacked myself for bringing up Pocahontas. Now he would ask about her. I had already lied for her enough, and the excuses were wearing thin. So the only places to shed light on were the newly exposed patches of truth. And I had worked so hard to hide it for her.

"And you?" he asked looking directly at me. It was my opinion he asked for. That brought a smile, unbidden, to my face.

"I guess," I said caught off guard. "I'd like to say what she does. But I can't believe that. We all want too much to ever be satisfied as neighbors. From the moment they stepped on this soil, they wanted something and so did we. Only our desires were opposites. We are too different to ever be able to see eye to eye with one another. At least that's what I think." Kocoum smiled at this, looking down as if privately laughing at his own inside joke.

"What?" I asked.

"You are both so different and you are friends, yet you say that two different cultures can never coexist."

"Oh, I suppose that's true. We've always been different, even as kids I was warning her not to jump off too-high rocks. And she was always pulling me along with her." For a moment I closed my eyes to remember. Together Pocahontas and I were a blur, moving too fast for the eye to see. And now, when I slowed down to pick up the ruins of our invaded homeland she had run off. But this time she had run off without me.

"I can see that," he said, as if he was imagining our past along with me.

"And where were you, secretly looking at Pocahontas through the bushes?" I said with a laugh. "I totally can see the little kid you admiring her from afar."

"Actually," he said fixing his trademark, intense serious gaze on me. "I had always liked you."  
"You did?" I asked suddenly shocked. Then I tried to brush it away. "It must have been an easy switch from me to Pocahontas then. She told me, you know, about your proposal."

"It wasn't as easy as you think," he said.

"Then why did you ask her?" I asked confusion showing in every line of my face. Why make it harder on himself? He could get me in a heartbeat. My father would be overjoyed in the match. And I…well that consideration was certainly out of the question now. I shouldn't even have thought of him in this way. But _he_ brought it up.

"I was talking with Powhatan and he told me of his intentions to marry off Pocahontas. It was what was expected of me."  
"I understand," I saw in his face a mirror of my own crushed hopes. However, I knew he placed more weight on the dreams of others than his own desires. Above all, Kocoum fulfilled his duty as a husband, as a warrior. For a while we sat there in silence. We were separated not merely by a lack of things to say, but of an ocean of separate interests that were not our own.

"It should have been different," he said.

"I know," I replied and for a moment we eased into a new possibility an almost, getting closer and closer.

"Well, this is an interesting conversation," Pocahontas said coming up behind me. Her tone was light and teasing. "And what secrets were you conversing, just the two of you?"  
"If I told you that," I replied, with an assumed breezy disinterest at the loss of a last chance. "Then it wouldn't be a secret."


	2. The Things We Mean

**A/N:** Sorry this is another rushed chapter. I had to publish SOMETHING. I am proud to say that Kocoum is a little less OOC in this chapter. Or so I think :)

Song for this Chapter: "Little Pieces" by Parlour Steps

**EDIT: **Just read this over and realized there were a few grammar/spelling mistakes. They're all gone now!

**Chapter 2: The Things we Mean to Say**

"It was clearly an amazing night for the both of us" she said and continued to describe her exploits in hushed tones, so that only I could hear. Pocahontas tossed her hair from side to side when she spoke, her hair shimmering in the firelight. That was one thing about the way she spoke, it was not merely for the benefit of her listeners, it was for the entire audience—even the people nearby who where not a part of the glistening exchange of words. I didn't resent her for this. All our lives it was this way—she couldn't help being the prettier one, the most enthusiastic, the most daring. Sound and motion came as naturally to her as silence and common sense came to me.

"You shouldn't keep this up," I said shaking my head. "These sort of things always come out eventually and when they do-."

"And when they do I'll deal with it," she swiftly intercepted my warning, used to my concerns. "For now I shall do what I please." This was her way. The world was harmless to her, so she could never understand the danger of her own actions. And for once I would have to show them to her.

"There's a war going on," I said my words suddenly turning sharp. "You can't say that this doesn't involve everyone. Our whole tribe is set to be entangled in their affairs, simply because you can't get lover-boy to say a few words of peace to your father." For a moment Pocahontas stopped the hair shaking, stopped the preening as she looked at me. I had been only a fluttering childhood friend full of concern and agreement, but now she saw too quickly the opinions of my own mind. The opinions did not sit well with her.

"What's wrong with you?" she said drawing back from me. "I thought you were on my side."

"The tribe suffers because of your little liaison. They should leave."

"No!" insisted Pocahontas. "We can coexist I know it."

"You only say that because of _him_. They nearly killed one of our warriors. And this tentative peace…I don't trust it."

"You don't know them like I do. If you saw them for what they really were I'm sure you wouldn't say that."

"If I don't know them, how can you expect them to know us? Our ways must be as strange to them as theirs are to us. Even if we use our confusion as a mutual basis I still don't see how we could resolve this in any other way.

"You are wrong," Pocahontas asserted in that self-assured tone of hers. "I know that we can fix this."

"The warriors have already come. Kocoum and I were talking about that. They are still strategizing how to attack such a strange people, but we have the homeland advantage."

"I am going to solve this and everything will be fine," Pocahontas's eyes blazed with an inner conviction that she was right and everything and everyone else was simply misguided. She got up and walked towards her tent. "You'll see."

They captured him. Her white…I don't know what he was to her really. A lover? A friend? A confidant? To me he was only an obstacle. Something she could get over if she really tried. I suppose that's a really unsympathetic way to view a friend's possible boyfriend. However, I never really knew him any better to form a new opinion. But I had no space in my mind for thoughts of him. Instead Pocahontas pushed her way in, constantly plotting for ways to free him.

"Talk to the guards," she urged me. "They'll believe you, rather than me." It was true that for the first time, she had been denied something that she had truly wanted. Her boyfriend was a captive, as our neighboring tribe, suspicious of this supposed emissary had tied him up before he was a threat as all his other countrymen had been. It may not have been right for them not to hear him out, but we had a right to our distrust. Past dealings and negotiations had never yielded anything but conflict. And now it was at a boiling point. Somehow it had come out that this man, her man, had killed a warrior long before his capture. Now he was to be executed tomorrow. And Pocahontas wanted one more conversation with him.

"Pocahontas wants to look into the eyes of the man who killed one of our warriors without reason." I said. And with a furtive glance they let her in. I didn't hang around. Standing outside the tent I felt more like a pet, loyal and idiotically waiting for her to return. Suddenly I found myself striding away. And like the horrible friend I had become I didn't care at her wondering at my absence. I didn't care at the blur of scenery around me, I just had to get out of this stifling collection of homes and people. The things I could so swiftly lose if things went wrong.

"What are you doing?" a sharp voice called from behind me. I turned to see Kocoum and then I examined my surroundings. Apparently I was at the edge of the village, about to venture into the woods beyond.

"I don't know," I said with a sigh.

"Obviously not," Kocoum stated still in a gruff tone. "Or you would know that it's completely dangerous to go into the woods at night. Especially now. Or do you have some sort of business there?"

"What?" I said disgusted at his implications that I, too, had a lover among the settlers. "I have no business in those woods. Although I cannot fathom how that is any concern of yours."

"It is only my duty as a warrior," he said gravely. "I must protect you."

"I am not that stupid," I muttered and then stopped. For surely his heart was now broken. Although Kocoum, as serious as he was, wasn't going to show it. I spoke with a little more kindness. "I am sorry."

"For what?" he said looking surprised.

"You know. For Pocahontas," I said. No matter what he had felt for her, it must not have felt very nice to have her cheat on him. Which was essentially what she was doing, engaged to Kocoum as she was. Not that she was marrying him now.

"That was unavoidable," he said not quite looking me in the eyes.

"It didn't help anyone," I said, trying to catch his gaze. His eyes searched my own for a second and then he broke the connection by looking away.

"It doesn't matter. I never cared for her," he said this quietly as if he wanted to push away any accusations of feeling more than he did.

"There could be a war," I said matching his softness. What I mean was that he could be fighting said war.

"We will be there tomorrow. At the execution. His men know what we are planning. They will not let him go without a fight."

"I wish it didn't have to end that way," I said. "I don't know how we could ever trust them—or them us—but I wish it were different."

"Tomorrow will be tomorrow," he said, as if grimly accepting his fate. "No matter what we do."

"So you're ready to jump in at a moment's notice and die?" I said unable to stop the bitterness from creeping into my query. "How noble."

"Look, Nakoma," Kocoum said in an infuriatingly calm tone. "This war is bigger than ourselves. We're fighting for our home. These men wish to live here on our land. It will not be just them. They have ships, who knows where they come from? Who knows if more ships will not dump more men and more guns on our land, in our home? Isn't your way of life, the whole village's way of life worth protecting? Even if someone might risk death in the process?"

"Obviously you think so," I said turning away. I was mad just then because I realized that he would always be like this. His duty to others would always trump any fleeting feelings for me. "I just thought you might have a reason to stay alive." He looked down at me and when he spoke next he phrased his words carefully.


	3. The Dangers of Practicality

**A/N:** It's short but I don't feel any remorse...well maybe a little. But I've seen shorter on this site. Don't worry the next chapter will be up immediately after this one and wll have another quote! And yes practicality is a word. I looked it up.

**Chapter 3: The Dangers of Practicality**

"How can we continue this if our home will suffer for it?" he said with some trepidation, as though he was measuring out the sting in his words before he said them. "Isn't that what Pocahontas did? They made this worse, not better. It's really better for the both of us and for the war as well if we just looked at whatever we may have had as a minor incident." All I could think of when those words were coming out of his mouth is "wow that was not a nice thing to say". He could've lived and died and been a better man without distancing himself from our relationship. But if he dismissed his feelings and my own so easily, there was really no point in continuing. Or at least that's what my head said. It was much harder to broach the subject of dismissing Kocoum with my heart.

"I think you're just coming up with excuses to get out of this relationship," I said acerbically, yet my tone was smothered with forced calm. "So I release you. Obviously you consider your feelings towards me to be a burden. I don't want to play second fiddle in my own relationship. I just thought you'd be bigger than that. But I guess you aren't." I turned to leave trying to move as carelessly as Pocahontas, but it didn't work. I was sure my disappointment was radiating from my body. I had really wanted this to work and for a time it had. But I suppose things look better in your head than in real life. That was just the way the world worked. But for once I wished it could have been different.

"Nakoma," he said calling out to me after I turned away from him. "Wait. I just meant that we should-."

"Whatever you meant, you clearly aren't invested in this relationship," I said turning only my head to face him. "I'm not going to stick around with someone who doesn't want me." And with those angry parting words I turned my back on him completely and walked away. It was hard to be this realistic, to not fly above it all like Pocahontas, but to walk down here with mere mortals and their dreary reality. However it was just a neccesity, and I was as subject to neccesity as Kocoum was to a call for war. We were inherently seperate, by society, our circumstances, and finally ourselves. And for that last degree of seperation-that final notion of distance-there was no bridge, no way to create a path across it; there was only space sprawling between us and keeping us apart.


	4. An Act of Heroism

**A/N:** Here you go, although now that I think about it this chapter is pretty short, too. Well, they say good things come in small packages so... Anyway I hope you guys enjoy the FINAL CHAPTER of "A Connection Beyond Fate". I need to finish more fanfics it feels so awesome when I do. I might be writing another Pocahontas fanfic starring Nakoma, but I think I have to finish more of my other neglected fics first. Enjoy!

**Chapter 4: An Act of Heroism**

...

"My love is of a birth as rare  
As 'tis for object strange and high:  
It was begotten by Despair  
Upon Impossibility." ~Andrew Marvell

...

On the day of John Smith's execution I was like a ghost, insubstantial and barely there. Despite the effort it took to drag myself from bed, I made it to the execution. I had looked for Pocahontas, but she was notably absent and I had assumed that she couldn't bear to watch. I should have known better. Instead, the proceedings started, their warriors arrived and John Smith was brought out all in a monotonous series of motions. And then Pocahontas arrived. She had been running. I could see it in the energy that seemed to crackle within her eyes. Powhatan raised his club with deadly slowness and took aim. Pocahontas flung herself dramatically out on top of John Smith.

"No, Father!" she proclaimed. "I love this man and you cannot kill him simply for the sake of bloodshed. Violence begets violence. If you do strike, you'll have to kill me, too." Even her words sounded as though she was in a play. No one could really speak like that. To her, this was a bout of theatrics and all that mattered was that she was the starring role. All eyes were on her; she had protected John Smith, so what else mattered? I watched horror struck as her father, our warriors and theirs paused in a moment of deadly hesitation.

"You are right," Powhatan spoke with the gentleness born of raising an impatient child. Then he addressed the warriors. "Today we have come here and our purpose was one of anger, of bloodshed. My daughter stepped up today with courage and peace. If there is to be any bloodshed among us, it will not start with me." And then, as if to punctuate his sentence, he did the worst possible thing—he set down his club. The events that followed seemed to be eerily predictable, and moved in a slow dreamlike quality. The white leader seemed to be shouting, their warriors stood calm and still. Incensed, the man aimed his rifle at Powhatan. John Smith, able to predict the actions of his own people almost as well as I could, stood up to protect our chief, but not quick enough. Smith was shot in the head. Now there was more yelling from the white warriors as they tried to take the gun from their leader. And then another shot was fired. My whole body was paralyzed as I saw the bullet ricochet off one of the white warrior's helmets and come towards me. Then I was being pulled backward by a strange force. A small motion, almost negligible in terms of distance or effort, but I turned to look at who had pulled me back. It was Kocoum. And as I looked, as he stayed as silent as ever, the bullet flew past where my head would have been had I not turned at the last second. He had saved me, or maybe I had saved myself. There had been no dramatic pause, no words that sounded as though they belonged on a stage. Instead, my speech was as still as my body. All around me people were moving. Going home I supposed, as there was to be no war, no execution today. Kocoum, however, just stood there waiting for me to get my bearings.

"I thought that you didn't care," I said. "Or care enough at least."

"I do," he said. "Not that I'll shout it from the mountain tops or anything, but yes, I care about you than the war. Or anything I'm supposed to do. And if you're willing to make it work…so am I." He had spoken the words that had been going on a loop in my insanely hopeful mind. It was more perfect hearing him in reality. It was more perfect than I could have ever imagined. And there was nothing else to say. Now I was silent because his lips were pressed against mine and blazes of light were going off right in front of my eyes. He stepped back after a moment and I smiled. It was impossible and inexplicable and yet it was happening. He had kissed me. All that seperation, all the things in our way didn't matter because _we_ were the ones flying in the face of everything we were supposed to do. It was my victory-our victory-and I savored it. Finally in the battle of us against the world we had won.


End file.
